


Nothing but Time

by Miri1984



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Lucifer (TV)
Genre: AU, Crossover, Gift Fic, Multi, warden's vigil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 16:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17511800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: Hawke is Lucifer. Alistair is Decker. Dragon Age in the Lucifer universe. Exactly what it says on the box.This fic was written for a gift exchange on Warden's Vigil for the lovely and intrepid Ouyangdan, forever my bestie.





	Nothing but Time

“Theirin!” shouted Lieutenant Stroud, not necessarily the person Alistair wanted to see right now, what with sixteen different calls to make and two suspects in lockup, “Need you to head back out with Merrill, new case just came in.”

 

“Sir I…”

 

Stroud slapped a folder into Alistair’s hands and turned him around by the shoulders. “Priority, Detective. Dead body at The Hawke Estate.”

 

Merrill was forensics. He stopped by to pick her up on the way to the car. “You haven’t been to Lux, have you sir?” she asked him.

 

“Please call me Alistair, Merrill, I’m barely a year older than you.”

 

She ignored him. Like always. “I heard they have orgies there,” she said. “And Detective Aveline - you know - over at Vice? She said one night they busted up a satanic ritual!”

 

“It’s a nightclub, Merrill, they’re not likely to be summoning demons there, think of how it would hurt profits if the paying patrons all got eaten?”

 

“Oh they’re not summoning demons to attack people,” her green eyes glinted as she leaned in closer to him. “I heard they were summoning them for… other things.”

 

“Other things?” Alistair was thankful for the heat of the Kirkwall summer, hoping he was already red enough for his intense blush to go unnoticed.

 

She elbowed him in the ribs and he pretended to be hurt.  _ “You _ know what I mean.”

 

He really didn’t. He could speculate, and of  _ course _ there was the internet, but people always expected him to have… inside knowledge about that sort of thing. You’re in  _ one  _ film without your shirt and suddenly, according to the department and everyone in it, you know  _ everything  _ there is to know about sex. 

 

He had tried, in vain, to point out that his brother, Cailan, had been the real star of  _ Wardens: Wet and Wild _ , and Alistair had only been in that one scene, but since Cailan’s death people seemed far too willing to mistake him for his half brother and badger him about why he’d left show business. 

 

He didn’t even look that much like Cailan. Their hair was totally different.

 

Merrill’s chatter filled the silence as he drove them to The Hawke Estate and parked, miracle of miracles, within a block of its red-roped entrance. This was definitely not the sort of place Alistair frequented. Two men in dark suits stood on either side of the double doors, dark sunglasses over their eyes and obvious ear-pieces. 

 

“They must be awfully hot,” Merrill whispered to him.

 

“That’s the trouble with trying to look imposing,” he said, giving her a half grin as they climbed the few steps to the doors. “Doesn’t really work so well in an Hawaiian shirt and shorts.” He tugged at his own jacket, as lightweight as he could possibly get away with and still hide his holster, before the larger of the two men held up his hand.

 

“We’re closed,” he said. Alistair raised an eyebrow, then fished his ID from his pocket. 

 

“I know,” he said. “Detective Theirin, Kirkwall PD. I’m here to see the proprietor.”

 

The man made a show of examining the ID, although he didn’t bother to take off his sunglasses. Good eyesight, or a preference for style rather than the ability to actually do his job. “She’s upstairs,” he said, finally, jerking his head at the doors.

 

“Thank you,” he said.

 

The club was pretty much what Alistair expected it to be. A lot of black glass, sleek, red couches and expensive lighting. At the centre of the large room there was a dais which held a grand piano - currently being played, although the top was up and obscured the face of the musician. Alistair didn’t recognise the tune. He nodded to Merrill and made his way around the piano.

 

The pianist was tall, he could tell that even while she was sitting, with a frankly magnificent mane of red hair which was plaited intricately and lay over one of her shoulders. She wore a white shirt, black bracers holding up a pair of tailored black pants, although the feet that were working the pedals of the piano were bare, and the jacket meant to go with the shirt was slung over the edge of the piano stool. He could just make out bright red nail polish on her toes. A bottle of expensive whiskey sat near the music board, along with a glass that had a lot of whiskey in it for just past 10am, and as he watched a manicured hand swept said glass up and the woman who owned and ran Lux spun around on the piano stool to face him. 

 

“Detective!” she said, opening her arms and smiling a frankly, dazzling smile. “I must congratulate you on being so prompt. I’m assuming you brought some grunts to deal with our corpse problem? I really can’t have him clogging up the VIP room any longer, there’s a game tonight.”

 

“Miss… Hawke?”

 

She snorted and took a swig of her drink. “Please. Just Hawke. And you are…” her eyes narrowed. “You are  _ extremely _ familiar. Have we slept together?”

 

Merrill gave a delighted, cut off squeak and Alistair’s blush was probably visible from the moon. He cleared his throat. “I’m Detective Theirin,” he said. “And… uh… no. Most definitely not, ma’am.”

 

“Just Hawke, please.” Wide, hazel eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to one side. “Theirin.  _ Theirin…  _ mmmm, you’re absolutely certain we haven’t…?”

 

“Most certainly not, ma’am,” he said, more firmly this time, and fished his notebook out of a pocket. “Could you let me know the details of what happened?”

 

She got up from the stool and lightly leapt down from the dais, far too close to him for comfort although he couldn’t really see a way to step back from her without seeming rude. “I  _ do  _ know the name though. Theirin. Oh!” She snapped her fingers and laughed, a full, throaty laugh. “Cailan! That darling man.  _ He _ was the one I slept with. Such a shame when he died. You’re not a relative are you?”

 

A muscle worked in Alistair’s jaw. “He was my half brother, ma’am,” he said.

 

“Oh, well that explains why I mistook you for him, then.” She said, eyes running down his body lasciviously. Then she blinked, as though she’d remembered something important, and waved a hand. “Sorry for your loss.”

 

He managed to force out a “thank you” between clenched teeth. “Now if you could tell me what…?”

 

She turned and swept the bottle from the piano, splashing more liquid into a glass that was already too full. She took a swig and then shrugged. “Come see him, I guess,” she said, and started off towards the back of the club, bare feet white against the black tiles of the floor.

 

He followed to a smaller room, with card tables and a dance floor that was obviously there for the aesthetics and not for use. Or at least, not for use by dancers. Right now it held two uniformed officers, one of whom was taking pictures. Merrill was already snapping her gloves on and nodded to him, moving forward to examine the body.

 

A middle aged man, completely bald, with a small and, Alistair privately thought, terribly styled white goatee, lay on the ground, his neck obviously broken. Eyes a startling shade of blue were wide open and staring back towards the entrance of the VIP room and his face was fixed in anger.

 

“You know who this is, sir?” the uniform said.

 

Alistair sighed. He did. He’d recognised the goatee straight away. “It’s Alric the Butcher,” he said. 

 

***

 

Hawke was back at the piano when he emerged, this time accompanied by a lithe, white haired man with flowing tattoos down each arm that reached up to his neck. He wore a short-sleeved leather vest and leather pants, although he too, was barefoot. 

 

Hawke was picking out a less jaunty tune on the piano with one hand while the man stood next to her, arms crossed and glaring.

 

“You need to take steps to make sure no one else can get into the club, Hawke,” he was saying.

 

She waved a hand. “I have no idea who that man is, he was obviously not here for  _ me,”  _ Hawke replied.

 

“Yes  _ obviously  _ which is why you need…”

 

“Fenris,” she put her hand on his chest and turned that dazzling smile back on Alistair. “We have company and this conversation can definitely wait till later.” 

 

The man, Fenris, glared at Alistair as though he could kill him with the power of a look alone, then muttered something in another language under his breath before stalking towards the bar. Hawke clapped her hands together. “So did you drag our guest away?”

 

“He’ll go in for autopsy,” Alistair said. 

 

“Thought it was pretty obvious what killed him,” she said, jumping down from the dais again holding the bottle and sitting at a nearby table, waving Alistair to take the seat opposite her. “Drink?” she said, waving said bottle in his direction.

 

“Not while I’m duty, ma’am,” he said. “And there are some questions that need answering. Can you tell me, Miss….”

 

“If you must use an honorific, I much prefer Mistress,” she said, winking, then taking another sip of her drink. 

 

He swallowed. “Can you tell me if you knew the dead man?”

 

She shrugged. “Never saw him before in my life,” she said. “Most definitely  _ not  _ my type.”

 

“Are you the only person currently in residence in this building?”

 

“Fenris has a small apartment, adjacent to mine,” she said. 

 

“What time did the club close last night?” he said.

 

“3am,” she said. “Mondays are usually pretty quiet, funnily enough for a city that supposedly never sleeps. I went to my apartment around 3:45, the bar staff would have finished closing up around 4.”

 

“You have security cameras?” 

 

“Naturally.”

 

“I’ll need to review the footage.”

 

“Fenris handles security, you can talk to him on your way out.”

 

“Can you think of any reason someone might have wanted to murder this man in your club?”

 

She shrugged and drank again. “Humans do the weirdest things, Detective,” she said. “I doubt I’ll ever understand their reasons.”

 

He frowned and tilted his head. “Humans?” he said. She flashed him a grin, then chucked him under the chin with one finger. 

 

“You’re adorable,” she said. “But weird. Let me know if you need anything else?”

 

Back at the precinct, he did some digging to try to find all the information they had on Alric the Butcher. He’d been part of a patriot group that called themselves The Templars in the midwest during the early 2000s, but he’d dropped off the radar in 2009. Ten years of mysterious sightings and brutal killings later and he’d turned up dead at the Hawke Estate, a veritable cesspool of all the things he’d protested against during his time with the Templars. Not great for his image.

 

Alistair liked a mystery, but couldn’t deny that the world was a better place without this man in it.

 

It was getting late and Alistair, rubbing tired eyes, leaned back in his chair, musing over the events of the day. She’d been a strange one, Hawke, with her flamboyance, her hair, her very pretty toes... 

 

He swallowed, deciding he needed a coffee, and moved to the kitchenette, which was even darker than the rest of the office.

 

“Alistair,” the voice was low and sensuous and gently accented, and coming from directly behind him.

 

He spun, drawing his gun and pointing it into the darkness, acting on instinct even as part of him thrilled. He  _ knew  _ that voice.

 

In the shadows he could see her, no darkness could hide the red flame of her hair and the piercing blue of her eyes.

 

“Leli?” he said.

 

“Please do not point your weapon at me,  _ mon cher _ ,” she said, smiling and walking forward. “You know it would do you no good.”

 

He holstered it, somewhat sheepishly. “Wasn’t going to shoot you,” he said. “You just surprised me.”

 

“It is my job, no? To surprise you?”

 

“Certainly seemed that way, back when we were kids.” She reached up and cupped his cheek, leaning forward to plant a light kiss on his lips.

 

“Did the Inquisition let you off the hook or are you here officially?” he said, once he’d caught his breath.

 

She shook her head. “Not officially. I had word from a friend that you were investigating the death of Alric the Butcher, so I pulled a few strings to get you this…” she handed over a thin folder.

 

He raised an eyebrow. “Presents?” 

 

She smiled. “The best kind. Information.”

 

“Are you in town for….?”

 

Her smile was a little sad. “I need to be back in Orlais before morning,” she said. “Inquisition business.”

 

He sighed. Duty had kept them apart for too long. “I’ll put in for some leave,” he said, empty promises, but ones that needed to be made, for the sake of the two of them. 

 

Her voice floated back to him as she walked out the door. “Please do,  _ mon cher.” _

 

Inside the folder Alistair found a series of pictures. It took him a moment to recognise the people in them, but when he did, he let out a string of curses and picked up the telephone.

 

***

 

Hawke sat in the interrogation room, both feet, encased in delicate golden sandals, crossed and up on the table. Today she wore a pair of light linen pants, again kept up by bracers (although he couldn’t see how they could fall off of such generous hips) over another loose, white shirt, unbuttoned low enough that Alistair could see glimpses of a pale, lace edged bra whenever she moved.

 

Distracting.

 

“You really should get a decorator in,” she said as he entered. “I’ve never seen anywhere quite so dreary.”

 

“It’s a police station, Hawke,” Alistair said. 

 

“No reason to sacrifice style,” she replied, smiling at him, then swinging her feet down to the floor and leaning forward over the table. “Imagine how surprised I was to receive your call, Detective. I thought I wouldn’t have the pleasure of your company again, and I was quite, quite devastated.”

 

He wasn’t in the mood for banter right now, and put the folder Leliana had given him on the table without bothering to sit down. 

 

“Take a look,” he said. She raised an eyebrow at him and flicked open the folder. Inside there were the pictures that Leliana had given him, but they were behind a photo that Alistair himself had looked up shortly after Leliana had left. 

 

It was a wedding photo, of a laughing, stylish Hawke, holding a glass of champagne and wearing a wedding dress, next to a tall, exceptionally handsome man wearing the official regalia of Starkhaven. 

 

Hawke’s expression changed from charmed and interested to almost feral in a second. She picked up the photo like one would a dead rat. “What is this and why are you showing it to me?”

 

“You were married to the Prince of Starkhaven in 2012,” he said.

 

“For  _ five days!”  _ she said. “ _ And  _ I’ve been trying to forget it ever since,” she said.

 

Alistair crossed his arms over his chest. “Just look at the rest of the photos.”

 

She dropped the offensive photo on the table and glanced down at the others. Her expression of disgust melted and was replaced with something more akin to delight. “Well now,” she said, picking up the first of them. “What’s this?”

 

“They were taken two weeks ago,” Alistair said. The photo was grainy and taken from a great distance, but the two men it depicted were both so distinctive looking that it was impossible to mistake them. 

 

Alric the Butcher and Prince Sebastian Vael of Starkhaven. 

 

“Would you care to speculate on why the Prince of Starkhaven, your ex-husband, would be meeting with one of the most wanted bounty hunters in the United States?”

 

“Obviously he wants someone killed,” Hawke said, but she wasn’t paying attention to Alistair, instead she was looking through the photos. “Where did you get these?” she said.

 

Alistair coughed. “You don’t need to know that.” 

 

She glanced up at him, eyes keen and twinkling. He kept her gaze for a few seconds before glancing away. “Soooooo,” she drew out the word and leaned back in the chair, putting her feet back up on the table, “dearest Sebastian wants someone dead, eh?”

 

“You, he wants  _ you  _ dead.”

 

She snorted. “Don’t be stupid, he wouldn’t want to kill me. Even if he could. Best five days of his life, that marriage, but he was just as happy to end it as I was. We really only did it for the cake. He’s such an insufferable bore, though, once I’d worn him out enough that he thought we should  _ talk  _ rather than…”

 

“I don’t need to know the details of your…”

 

“Oh but you’d  _ like  _ to, wouldn’t you? Naughty thing.” She shook her head. “No the Prince doesn’t want to kill me. I could probably help you find the person he does want to kill though, if you’d be interested?”

 

Alistair blinked. “Wha.. what?”

 

“I can help you. Find the killer. Or well, considering this Alric fellow was sent to kill someone perhaps it’s not so clear cut now, then? A case of self defense perhaps?”

 

It had occurred to Alistair, that whoever had killed Alric had only been trying to save themselves. But if that was the case, why had they run? And if it had been self defense, why was there so little sign of a struggle? The break had been clean and Alric had been dead before he knew he was even in danger. 

 

“That’s for a jury to decide.”

 

Hawke sucked air in through her nostrils. “A jury of peers,” she said, then gave a dry chuckle. “You know, if whoever did this is what I think they are, that could be a little difficult for you to find.”

 

***

 

“You  _ what?” _ Alistair was incensed. Stroud wasn’t exactly the most approachable of Lieutenants, but until now, he had at least believed he was sane.

 

“I think it would be an excellent idea for you to take Hawke with you. She obviously has contacts and people might feel more comfortable talking to her than…”

 

Alistair threw up his hands. “Fine!” he said.

 

“Also,” Stroud said, a little more quietly this time. “It’s time you started getting used to working with a different partner.” 

 

“That’s… low, Sir,” he said, but quietly. Two years, since she’d left. And he really couldn’t imagine anyone more different to Leliana than…

 

The door to the Lieutenant’s office swung open and Hawke walked in, hands in her pockets, whistling. “So, Detective! Where should we start?”

 

***

 

“I want to make it absolutely clear that this wasn’t my idea,” Alistair said as he drove them towards Darktown.

 

“Of course it wasn’t, it was mine,” Hawke said. “Typically brilliant of me, too. We’ll do fantastically, just you wait. Catching crooks, busting twerps…”

 

“They’re called perps.”

 

“But they’re  _ probably  _ twerps, too, right?” she had one foot up on the dashboard and it was taking all of Alistair’s patience not to push it back off again.

 

“This is for  _ one case,”  _ he said.

 

“Oh, your Lieutenant seemed to think it would be for more than that. Just delightful, that man. Such an amazing moustache. Pull over here would you?”

 

She was pointing to a spot near one of the entrances to Darktown. 

 

“Why exactly are we here again?” he asked.

 

“We,” she said, straightening her shirt, “need to see a dwarf about a cat.”

 

The way Hawke was dressed, Alistair expected the residents of Darktown to jeer at her or look away, instead, several people nodded to her as she passed. One or two of them even addressed her by name.

 

“You… seem like you know this place pretty well,” Alistair said.

 

“Not many places in Kirkwall you can be anonymous,” she said. “I lived here before I bought The Estate.”

 

“You…”

 

“I wasn’t always as fabulous as I am now, Detective,” she said, looking over her shoulder and winking at him. “And I [i] _ definitely[/i] _ wasn’t always as rich. Come here,” she beckoned him towards a doorway, dark, but a little less run down than some of the others.

 

And into a rowdy, well lit bar.

 

Hawke was laughing and clapping people on the back as she moved through the crowd towards a bartender, a tall, busty, black woman with more piercings than Alistair had ever seen. Or had only seen… once… 

 

“Isabela?” he said.

 

The woman blinked then grinned. “Well cover me in garlic oil and call me an appetizer, Alistair Theirin?”

 

Hawke, surprised but also obviously delighted, clapped her hands. “You two  _ know  _ each other?”

 

“Worked together,” Isabela said. “Although I heard you turned in theatre for a badge, you bloody idiot. Want a drink?” 

 

Hawke laughed. “Send it up to Varric’s room,” she said. 

 

“Oh, he’s expecting you,” Isabela said. 

 

“How do you know Isabela?” Hawke asked as they climbed the stairs. “I’m guessing it’s not the way most of us know her.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“If you worked with her that means… Oh! Of  _ course.  _ I knew it wasn’t just your resemblance to Cailan. Wardens: Wet and Wild! A masterpiece of its genre. I do hope you kept up the workout regime.”

 

He coughed. “That was years ago.”

 

“Seems like only yesterday.”

 

Up some rickety stairs, they found themselves in a lavishly furnished, nicely air-conditioned room. Sitting at a desk covered in papers with his back to them was a blond, stocky man. He stood up as they entered and Alistair realised he really  _ was _ a dwarf, coming only to Alistair’s waist. He wore a floral shirt open to reveal a truly magnificent mane of chest hair and greeted Hawke with a deep, rumbling and delighted voice.

 

“Hawke! It’s been months! What have you been doing with yourself?”

 

“I’m helping the police with their enquiries, Varric. Should make for a good chapter or two.”

 

Varric, for that was who this was, Alistair realised, turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “Police, eh?” he said. “You don’t look like a cop. You should grow a beard. Let me hear the voice.”

 

“What, you want to hear me talk?”

 

Varric waved a hand. “Nope. That won’t do at all. Way too goofy. Gimme dark and gravelly. Something hard bitten…”

 

“You work in text, Varric, you can make his voice sound however you like.”

 

“What brings you here, Hawke?” he said.

 

She took a deep breath. “Need to find him,” she said.

 

The tension in the room tripled. 

 

“He doesn’t want to be found,” Varric said.

 

“Sebastian sent a bounty hunter.”

 

“So?”

 

“The bounty hunter turned up dead in my club with a broken neck.”

 

Varric stared at them both for a moment, then started to chuckle. “Oh. Well. It’s nice to know he can defend himself. But you think he was looking for your help?”

 

“That’s what I figured.”

 

Varric shrugged. “Sebastian eh? Fuck that guy. Seriously.” He spun on his heel and turned around, heading back to the desk and hunting through a pile there. “If he asks I didn’t tell you anything,” he said, handing something to Hawke. “You need to go to the corner of Bourke and Riley. Set out the bait and wait.”

 

She leant forward and kissed Varric on the cheek. Alistair was interested to notice the dwarf’s hand come up to rest on her hip as she did so, and definitely did not notice Hawke brush a quick hand through his hair when they parted. 

 

“Take care,” Varric said. “And come visit again soon.”

 

“Get rid of Bianca and we’ll talk,” Hawke said, but she was smiling as she motioned for Alistair to follow her out.

 

***

 

Alistair had trained a lot to keep his temper in check when he was younger, but it took all of his discipline not to round on Hawke as soon as they left the Hanged Man.

 

“Okay,” he said, turning to face her in the street. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about this right now.”

 

Infuriatingly, she grinned. “Of course, Detective,” she said, then took his arm gently as they walked. “It’s really quite simple. Prince Sebastian had a dear friend, a… cleric, let’s say, who attended him when he was a little lad and all but moulded him into the boring assed bigot he is today.”

 

“What’s this got to do with…”

 

“Shush that pretty mouth and let me continue. Said cleric, by the name of Elthina, had a… let us say… side business in Starkhaven. One that involved children.”

 

Starkhaven liked to present itself as a civilised country, but Alistair knew enough about international politics and aid not to be surprised by this. “Go on.”

 

“Said side business was very profitable for her and her brethren. Certain parties, not from Starkhaven themselves, but with interests there, decided the business needed to end, and Elthina was killed.”

 

“And Prince Sebastian…?”

 

“Objected most strongly to this. So now he wants to hunt down the man responsible.”

 

They had reached the crossroads of Bourke and Riley, and Hawke brought out what Varric had given her in his room.

 

It was a small tin of cat food. She pulled a swiss army knife from somewhere else on her person to open it, carefully placed the can on the pavement, and motioned for Alistair to move out of sight.

 

***

 

“Why,” Alistair said, precisely and carefully, an hour later, “are we sitting behind a dumpster watching an open can of cat food?”

 

“I thought you police-mans had patience by the bucketload,” she murmured back, but she hadn’t taken her eyes from said can. 

 

“I am just… you know... trying to work out how this actually helps the…”

 

“Shh,” she said, putting a finger to his lips. “He’s coming.”

 

He followed the line of her gaze. In the lamplight he could just make out a small, four footed figure, treading delicately on the pavement towards the tantalisingly half-open can. The cat sniffed the can, then walked around it, tail tall and curling behind it. Then it looked directly into the alley where Hawke and Alistair crouched and let out a decisive “mew”.

 

“Hi to you too, Pounce,” Hawke said, then grabbed Alistair’s hand. “We need to follow the cat.”

 

He kept telling himself that he’d done weirder things, but really, clasping the hand of a glamorous club owner while following a cat through the backstreets of Kirkwall’s Darktown was up there.

 

Eventually they found a set of stairs that led, inexplicitly down into a basement that was remarkably well lit, and a set of benches, covered with what Alistair, with his limited experience, could identify as medical equipment. The cat they’d been following leapt up to a bench and let out a mew. A figure emerged from the darkness.

 

“Whooosagoodboyoden?”

 

The cat rubbed itself against a hand attached to a blondish man. He had a jaw a shape that could easily cut glass and deep set, liquid brown eyes on either side of a very distinguished looking nose. 

 

“Hawke,” he said flatly. “I thought I said we were done.”

 

“Anders,” she said, equally flatly. “That was before you decided to start killing people in my club.”

 

The man, Anders, Alistair assumed, ran a finger along the line of the cat’s spine, and said cat leaped to his shoulder, winding itself to sit draped across his neck like a scarf. Then he turned those disconcerting eyes directly on Alistair. “Who is your friend?”

 

Alistair didn’t hesitate, he drew his gun and pointed it at the man. “Detective Alistair Theirin, Kirkwall PD. You are under arr…”

 

He didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence before Anders was on him. There was no explanation for the speed, no warning, just a man who had a few seconds ago been making baby noises at a cat with his hands around Alistair’s throat ready to break his neck.

 

He wasn’t tracking desperately well, but he did hear Hawke give a sigh and mutter something before the pressure was blessedly gone. He coughed, spluttering to the side a few times before sitting up to see…

 

….to see….

 

Hawke. A women of… somewhere between twenty and forty years of age… holding Anders, a fully grown man of at least thirty, up by the scruff of his shirt, like the cat they had so diligently followed to find him.

 

“For fuck’s sake, Hawke,” Anders was saying. “This is  _ really _ undignified.”

 

Hawke, whom Alistair had up to now taken to be harmless but ridiculous, had an expression of purest anger on her face. “What have I ever done to make you distrust me, Anders?” she spat.

 

“Nothing,” Anders said. “Until now!”

 

She made a sound, then casually flung Anders against a wall. “He’s a good man,” she said, even as Anders, who should have been utterly prone, if not dead, by the force of that blow, got to his feet and casually dusted off his knees.

 

“Good looking, any way,” he said. Alistair groaned.

 

“I came here to find out what happened to Alric the Butcher,” Alistair said.

 

“Well that’s easy,” Anders said, and he was once again cradling the cat. “I killed him.”

 

Hawke put out a hand and touched Alistair’s arm. “This is the man I was talking about. The one who killed Elthina. Sebastian has been hunting him for the last four years.”

 

Alistair heaved a large, heavy breath. “I have… so many questions,” he said.

 

Hawke leaned forward and gave him a brief kiss to the cheek. “Well, Detective,” she said. “It’s a good thing we have nothing but time.”

 


End file.
